Warning! Norton Ghost 10 Major Problems

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Formula99, Jan 16, 2006.

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  1. Formula99

    Formula99 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 16, 2006
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    This message is to all Norton Ghost 10 users or those thinking of buying or upgrading. In a word DON'T. I recently went from Ghost 9.0 to Ghost 10.0 and it is riddled with bugs and problems which has almost wrecked my system. Add to this the absolutely shockingly awful "support" from Symantec and I am left considering a conversation with my solicitor!

    Specifically -

    1. SATA drives are clearly a problem when in the recovery mode. Neither of my 2 Maxtor SATA drives appear in the recovery mode which is kinda important since that's where my recovery images are stored!

    2. Even standard IDE drives also are a problem in Recovery mode. My bog standard 120GB IDE Maxtor is not displayed in this mode.

    3. Software based RAID is NOT supported. I tested Ghost 10.0 on my backup PC which has an NVIDIA RAID built on the MB. I can't get the recovery mode to boot properly even when adding the NVIDIA to the boot process from a floppy drive.

    Needless to say I have "tried" to get help from Symantec Support. I might as well have asked my cat for help. The first "technician" told me that I was using non supported drivers for my SATA drives which is absolute nonsence - all the drivers identified in Control panel for the Drives are present on the recovery disk. Oh and also, apparently, for certain IDE drives one has to load drivers for those in recovery mode since they are not supported. What a load of old b%^&*cks!

    I then made the mistake of using logic to dismiss this diagnosis. "So why in Ghost 9.0 then do my exotic SATA and highly exotic IDE drive appear in recovery mode". Answer - "Ghost 10 has an improved native driver support than Ghost 9.0 which is why your drives are not appearing"

    Ugghho_Oo_O?? o_O

    Trying to contain my annoyance, I dully ran their partition complier and emailed to them. No response. Called them again and then spoke with another space cadet adamant that its my system. Sent the partition info AGAIN - no response.

    So in summary, if you are one of those strange misfits like me who are clearly at the "very edge" of the latest drive hardware technology then DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES put Norton Ghost 10 on your system. On a positive note, I tried Acronis True Image v9.0 and ALL my drives show up quite happily in recovery mode without the need for floppy drive loads, incantations or whatever (even my highly exotic 120GB IDE drive - wow!). Also my NVIDIA RAID on my other PC works just fine with True Image v9.0.

    Oh, on a final thought. Norton's Recovery disk is not upgraded - you get it with your retail pack or download the image if you buy softcopy of the web. The Acronis recovery disk on the other hand is created by the Installed Windows software which means that Acronis can add more support for new drives and you can create upgraded Recovery disks. A cynic might suggest that Symantec have deliberately chosen this configuration so that you have to upgrade in order to have the latest drive technology supportedo_O No surely not.

    Well done Acronis :) :thumb:

    A note to Symantec - you may kindly take your buggy, badly designed products and your pathetic support and shove them where the sun don't shine - permanently.
     
  2. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

    Joined:
    Sep 20, 2003
    Posts:
    20,590
    Only version of Ghost I'd use is 2003. Although sold by big yellow, they hadn't yet "improved" it.

    Not surprised about the tech support. It is sad.

    Pete
     
  3. ClickCardo

    ClickCardo Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 14, 2006
    Posts:
    26
    I had a year old ASUS MB with a secondary Promise SATA RAID controller. I used it in it's other more exotic parallel (non-RAID) mode where each SATA drive showed up individually. I had to download the drivers from the ASUS website.

    I got Ghost 10.0 and it worked wonderfully making backup images. When I went to boot from the CD (as a test of course) lo and behold my 2 SATA drives on the Promise controller did not show. Most importantly that was where the backup images were.

    My first couple of attempts e-mailing their tech support were not fruitfull, but then I convinced them to bumping it up the chain (saying something about refund might have helped). Got to a wonderfull tech who worked over 4 days building me several Ghost Boot CD images to download and make CDs of.

    She finally got it right and my Ghost now works perfectly on my not so typical setup. So I just want everybody to know not everybody at Norton is a cruel unhelpfull person and the product can work as intended just fine.
     
  4. Skytrooper

    Skytrooper Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2006
    Posts:
    101
    Felines are notoriously indifferent and uncaring. I suggest you replace the creature with a Drahthaar (aka German wire-haired pointer).

    Amen
     
  5. EASTER.2010

    EASTER.2010 Guest

    Did someone hear mention Norton Ghost? Again? After all this time?

    I thought i was forever rid of those nightmares. Pls don't dig up those bones again. :ouch:

    Seriously though? I myself have a couple of somewhat recent versions which quickly became present day relics or rather, reminders of what software industry never to trust my table top machinery to ever again.

    Gahhh!! What a nightmarish experience that was! All i ever wanted to do man was simply image a single disc and back-up a meager 20Gig WD for safety like anyone. Well, needless to mention, no one ever warned me that it would become an experience from hades Hot itself. :mad:
    If you happened to be lucky enough to finally make it passed the myriad error messages or various other complaints and actually finish a complete image in the first place without having to stop someplace in the middle of all that and start over again, then you had no idea of the troubles that were yet to come when you entered the restore image stage.
    That is of course if the 4-leaf clovers were growing close enough to you in your yard that it actually passed the verification stage first.

    I'm not sure exactly why i still have those discs around, they are totally useless and i wouldn't dare even give them away to anyone for free. It would be safer to melt them.
     
  6. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 15, 2005
    Posts:
    5,554
    Location:
    USA still the best. But barely.
    I'm incredulous. :rolleyes:
     
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